“Quiet down! We’re all supposed to be dead, remember?! Unless it’s urgent, I don’t want to hear another word out of you all until we get to the casualty zone! And you’re forbidden to speak about what happened here to anyone, got it?! That’s an order! It’ll all be classified before the day is out anyway, but guard your tongues, even just with the other companies! Good grief, it’s just one preposterous thing after another with these kids... I’m fed up with it!” Tim was still grumbling under his breath as he departed with the rest of the soldiers in tow.
After we’d watched them vanish into the forest, Jewel threw her arms around me where I lay on the ground, beaming. “I did it, Allen! I did it! And it’s all because of you! I thought my magic was the problem, but I was wrong! I finally understand what Sally meant when she wrote, ‘One cannot truly know how to heal without first knowing how to love.’ Thank you, Allen!”
I see... Actually, no. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
I tried to push Jewel away, but to no avail. I was still too weak.
“How interesting... I’ll be needing a little more explanation from you, Allen,” Fey said, grinning. She crouched so we were eye to eye, which only made her look even more like a predator than usual. “Our friend Jewel here—Jewelry Reverence—has just become the first person to perform a miracle from the heavens since Saint Sally herself. How did you know she could do it? Surely you understand what this means, hmm?”
Er... No. Not at all.
Unfortunately, the longer I stayed quiet, the sharper her glare grew. She clearly wasn’t about to let this go without an explanation—I just didn’t have one to give.
“It was just a shot in the dark, I guess? I just thought that with a little more confidence she might be able to do it, so I gave her a little push... She already had everything she needed to do it though, you know? I didn’t actually do anything... Hey, I’m telling the truth!”
What’s the point in being honest if you’re all just gonna look at me like that anyway?!
“Allen, how much do you know about the Lost Tools of the Dragoon family?” Fey said in a very random change of topic.
“Nothing at all. Never heard of them. Don’t want to either,” I replied flatly. Truthfully, I had heard a few rumors about the Three Lost Tools—powerful magical artifacts belonging to Fey’s family that had ceased to function over the centuries—but I had no intention of letting her pull me into whatever harebrained scheme she was about to propose.
I’m not a goddamned oracle, all right?! It was just a guess!
“Anyway, we’ve got actual things to worry about right now,” I said, forcibly changing the topic once more. “Leo would have bought us some time, but there’s no way he could’ve beaten Godolphen. The geezer’s gonna be back any minute, so we’ve gotta start moving before the geezer gets back.”
The enemy was down to less than two companies worth of soldiers, most of whom were scattered throughout the forest, without any orders or awareness of the current situation. Leo had probably fallen in battle, but we still had nineteen warriors ready to go. There was just one senior citizen standing between us and victory.
✦ ✦ ✦
I managed to recover a decent amount of mana by the time Godolphen came wandering into the northern stronghold. He hadn’t bothered to bring any of the remaining troops with him, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. It wouldn’t take too long to round the stragglers up after we finished dealing with the old man.
“Just the two of you?” he murmured, surprised. “I see... I wager the others are on their way to the southern stronghold at this very moment, then? If you’re here, I presume it means you deployed Daniel Sardos as your eyes and ears throughout this entire endeavor. A bold move, Rovene. With his combat skills, Daniel is an unusual choice for a scout, is he not?”
He wasn’t wrong. However, our entire plan had hinged on the teams working in perfect sync and the traps going off at the right moment. We had other fighters, but no one else could have carried out Dan’s role.
He was wrong about the southern stronghold, though.
I scoffed. “Dan was the obvious choice—Vesta could see that right away, at least. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize that until now?” I taunted, slowly reaching for the half-empty, red-lidded vial in my pocket. My fingers had barely grazed the glass before Godolphen replied.
“You’ve won, Rovene.”
Yeah, yeah, stop grumbling and come at me already— Wait, what?
✦ ✦ ✦
“You’ve won. Our forces are spent, and the moment we lost Tim Buccan in battle, we also lost any possibility of victory. I could still capture one of your strongholds with little difficulty, but you’d simply retake it the moment I left, and any men I left there to defend it would perish. Never have I encountered a fortress as complex as this. As a rule, the more spread out your enemies’s defenses are, the easier it is to find chinks in their armor... But this? This was a well-oiled machine. Brute force was the only option left to me, and this was the result: a crushing defeat.”
Hold your horses, old man!
“You can’t give up now! You’re meant to be Indomitable, remember?! Don’t let Vesta’s mother-in-law-level fastidiousness get you down! He accounted for every single possibility in his plan, so of course you’d be caught off guard. But you haven’t lost yet, Master! We still haven’t defeated you! If you can take all nineteen of us out first, you’ll win!”
In order to teach Godolphen his long-overdue lesson, I’d been napping—alone—in my underground lair for almost the entirety of the fifth scenario. Now I finally had a chance to work together with my classmates, and he wanted to throw in the towel? If things ended here, looking back on the memories of my first school camping trip would be basically the same as reflecting on a week in solitary confinement. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
How come I’m the only one who doesn’t get to try out the co-op mode?!
Godolphen’s eyes widened in surprise. “That was not the concept of this scenario, Rovene. We, the invaders, were to capture this stronghold—or more accurately, strongholds—as the first stage of our campaign into Yugria. The moment we lost the strength needed to conquer your fortress, we also lost the invasion.”
Nope, not a chance.
“Calm down, Master! Is it because you’re on the invading team?! Is that why you’ve got no motivation?! Put yourself in my shoes, Master Godolphen. Do you think you’d let the invaders give in so easily?! Oh, how about this?! We’ll swap sides! We’ll invade Yugria, and you get to defend it! You’ve been messing with the scenario conditions the whole time, so who cares?! Fifth scenario, part two: Reinforcements for both sides will arrive by the deadline of noon tomorrow. Whichever side is occupying the most strongholds at that point wins. Just think of all the civilians you’ve gotta protect—yeah, that’s got you all fired up, right?! Good! It’s settled!” I declared, trying everything I could think of to provoke his competitive side. It worked.
“What exactly do you stand to gain from this, Allen Rovene...?” he asked, his eyes narrowing. “Very well. I cannot ignore such an impassioned challenge. However, I will not amend my previous decision. You have already won, and overwhelmingly so. We can continue our little skirmish if you so wish, but it will not increase your score.”
Phew... That was close. Indomitable? Which part of this guy is meant to be indomitable? He was about to break like a twig in a light breeze.
I grinned. “Our score...? Who gives a crap about something like that? Score us however you like—I don’t care. I just want to run around and have fun with everyone right until the final whistle—and that includes you, Master!”
Godolphen blinked in shock—and then, he broke into a wholehearted, booming laugh. “Very well, Rovene! And you, Beld Univance. As your homeroom teacher, I will gladly test your abilities. Unfortunately, however—” in the blink of an eye, he drew his sword and flew toward us “—these ruins will be your final resting ground!”
Beld easily intercepted the attack.